I just finished listening to the audible version of this book and managed to get through it in a weekend. I think it is an easy read, so most people should be able to read it all in a couple of days.

Dr. Atul makes a very strong case for using checklists to turn very complex tasks into steps that will help you avoid forgetting to do something. Airline pilots use them, skyscraper builders use them, surgeons are starting to use them. Now that I've read the book, I think there are places where I could use them in my work and become much more efficient.

Checklists aren’t meant to regiment a job, but to ensure that the mundane tasks that are easy to forget, but important to the outcome, are not done to completion. I liked his stories about being tasked with creating a Safe Surgery Checklist that could be used in all countries and hospitals in the world. He traveled to far corners of the world to witness the poor conditions and lack of funding and found that the checklist that the WHO team created did work. It helped save lives, build team work, and cut costs.

To build his checklist and to write the book, Dr. Atul met with builders of skyscrapers to learn how they turned the old way of building (using a Master Builder) to a team-based group of super specialists. The success is a result of checklists and communication among the specialists.

He met with the aviation experts who create checklists for airplanes. These checklists have helped in many notorious flight problems, including the crash in the Hudson last year. Was Sully a hero or was his team simply following procedures and checklists?

Financial experts are starting to use checklists to ensure that they take the emotion out of their decision making process. When looking to invest in a company, it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of the deal rather than to systematically analyze every aspect to ensure that you aren’t missing a key fact. The financial experts who are using checklists are making tons of money!

After the surgery teams had used the surgery checklist, they were surveyed to see what they thought of the process. The answer to one of the questions sums up the success: Would you ever have surgery in an operating room that doesn’t use the checklist? 98% of the respondents said NO, they wouldn’t have surgery unless there was a checklist!

Sheryl Larson top #DB2 SQL Expert, IBM GOLD Consultant, is our special guest on The DB2Night Show 8 October 2010 at 10am Central. Learn SQL tips from the master.

This week, the DB2Night Show is going "Cross Platform DB2" presented by Sheryl M. Larsen, IBM DB2 GOLD Consultant and President of SMLSQL (www.SMLSQL.com).

The Lessons Learned from SQL Performance Review presentation divulges discoveries and recommendations from various SQL performance review assignments across platforms. Come see if you have similar SQL performance issues and get the instructions on how to fix them. Issues discussed include non-optimal index design, access paths gone wild, residual predicates, misuse of SQL, excessive sorting, delayed filtering, lack of implementation of powerful new SQL features.

The DB2Night Show on Twitter: twitter.com/db2nightshow for the latest news about new episodes and interactive discussion. Use the hash tag #DB2Night in your Tweets.

The DB2Night Show on LinkedIn Group - join us to stay up to date on our show and discuss show episodes! The group registration link can be found on www.DB2NightShow.com.

If you’ve missed a show, remember that you can always get the recorded replay.

In SOA and Web Services Interface Design, data architecture guru James Bean teaches you how to design web service interfaces that are capable of being extended to accommodate ever changing business needs and promote incorporation simplicity. The book first provides an overview of critical SOA principles, thereby offering a basic conceptual summary. It then provides explicit, tactical, and real-world techniques for ensuring compliance with these principles. Using a focused, tutorial-based approach the book provides working syntactical examples - described by Web services standards such as XML, XML Schemas, WSDL and SOAP - that can be used to directly implement interface design procedures, thus allowing you immediately generate value from your efforts. In summary, SOA and Web Services Interface Design provides the basic theory, but also design techniques and very specific implementable encoded interface examples that can be immediately employed in your work, making it an invaluable practical guide to any practitioner in today's exploding Web-based service market.

Provides chapters on topics of introductory WSDL syntax and XML Schema syntax, taking take the reader through fundamental concepts and into deeper techniques and allowing them to quickly climb the learning curve.

Provides working syntactical examples - described by Web services standards such as XML, XML Schemas, WSDL and SOAP - that can be used to directly implement interface design procedures.

Real-world examples generated using the Altova XML Spy tooling reinforce applicability, allowing you to immediately generate value from their efforts.

A companion website with all artwork and code examples accompanies the book.

First of all, this and the other pre-conference classes take place only on Sunday October 24 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. This is a special one-day offering being presented on Sunday, October 24,2010 in conjunction with the IBM Information on Demand 2010 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration for the IOD Conference is NOT required to attend this Sunday class.

This training course is designed to introduce you to the relational in-memory database technology and high-speed advanced replication components which comprise the solidDB Universal Cache. This is the industry's first relational, in-memory caching technology that accelerates industry leading databases such as DB2, Informix, Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase. Specific focus through in-depth lecture, examples, and use cases, will be put on the following topics: in-memory architecture, administration, installation and configuration, caching, performance, high availability, monitoring, diagnostics, and troubleshooting.

This training is designed to introduce you to the concepts a test candidate must know in order to take and pass the IBM solidDB and IBM solidDB Universal Cache certification exam (Exam 5550). The material for this course is aligned with the 5550 exam objectives.

Following aspects of the solidDB product family are addressed in the course:

DB2 9 for DevelopersLearn the “why” and “how” of a well-designed and well-implemented DB2 database.DB2 9 for Developers5086-dPrice: $64.95On Sale: $38.97

DB2 9 FundamentalsPrepare for IBM Exam 730 by learning from one of the world's leading experts and an active participant in the creation of the exam.DB2 9 Fundamentals5088-dPrice: $59.95On Sale: $35.97

On top of blogging as often as possible, I’m now tweeting… mostly to drive awareness to my blog entries. When you blog and tweet, you end up following others who blog and tweet. Tweeting is very reciprocal… so if someone follows you, it is “expected” that you follow them as well.

I am following only about 200 people at this point, so not a huge amount, but I must say, I still can only read a very small percentage of the information. So what to do?

First, Tweet Newspapers. This is a collection of related tweets, by a variety of people. A person who tweets will put a tag in their entry, something like #DB2 and all such tweets are collected and produced in a very handy newspaper front page style. I quite like it. Here are the ones that you may want to look at:

Second, for blogs we have a aggregator called “PlanetDB2” which collects blog entries from a variety of people giving you one place to look for the blog entries that might interest you.

So, to get an idea of what is going on in the tweet or blog worlds, you simply need to look at a couple of websites … once a day… rather than consuming your precious time reading all of the entries that come on a daily basis!

I’m re-listening to the audible versions of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. As I’m going through it, I’m convinced that the IBM Information on Demand Conference committee couldn’t have chosen better guest speakers for a conference that is all about data!

What are these books about? Steven Levitt is an economist who is intrigued by the stories behind the data. He’s managed to find data in the most unlikely places about topics that are not well documented. Stephen Dubner is the journalist who has an exceptional talent of putting together the stories that give radical conclusions to the data.

What effect does the name you give to your child have on his / her future?

What really matters most when parenting?

SuperFreakonomics:

How can technology improve the quality of life for women in remote areas of the world?

How did the car save the world from one of the biggest problems occurring in 1900?

Why are brownstones in NYC built the way they are?

Does chemotherapy really help cancer victims?

When is 99% not accurate enough?

Why should you desire to have more the IRS conduct more audits?

Why are there so few women at the head of large companies?

Why is being in the military more dangerous in times of peace vs times of war?

When is it best to avoid going to the emergency room for an illness?

Why did the crime rate go up so high in the 60s?

These are just some of the stories that I remember. If you love data, you’ll love the stories and conclusions that Levitt & Dubnar put together based on the data that they analyze.

Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt are presenting at the keynote session at IOD that takes place Wednesday morning…. and come by to get your book signed after the keynote for an incredibly short signing session from 10:00 - 10:20 am. I hope you can join us. Add this book signing to your schedule via the Smart Site Agenda Builder. Their session is Anc # 3779.

This year at the IBM Information on Demand Conference, we have five NEW Flashbooks to give out to attendees for free. What are flashbooks? These are the small and easy-to-read books that we created especially for our IOD audience. I’m really happy with the topics we’ve managed to pull together this year.

For those of you who are not able to come to the conference, all of these flashbooks will soon also be available for sale from amazon.com. I’ll post the details when that happens.

The book signings & giveaways for these flashbooks will take place at the Mandalay Bay Foyer Book Store - Mandalay Bay South Convention Center at the day and time listed below. Add these book signing to your schedule via the Smart Site Agenda Builder.

We have a limited number of the following “Flashbooks” that will be given away at the appointed time. The authors of these books will be available to sign your copy.